


Nothing That He Has Wrought Shall Be Lost

by chileancarmenere



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-05 12:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chileancarmenere/pseuds/chileancarmenere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Greagoir and Wynne's lives intertwine over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing That He Has Wrought Shall Be Lost

**Author's Note:**

> The verse from the Chant of Light that Greagoir quotes is the Canticle of Trials, Trials 1:14, which is also what the title is from.

“Push,” the older mage beside her urges, and though it bloody well hurts and she feels as though if she pushes again she will tear down the middle like an old sheet, she does as she is told.

“Scream, it’s all right,” the mage says, and Wynne grits her teeth and bears down, her hand clamped around the other mage’s like a vise. She won’t scream, she won’t sob and cry and call for her mother like she’s seen so many other women do in childbirth. It was degrading enough to have to walk past the templars and hear their hissed insults. She’ll show them dry eyes.

With one last agonizing pain, the baby comes free and another mage wraps it up in a blanket, patting it dry and cooing soft words. She feels light-headed and dizzy, as though she could float away. It’s a sensation not unlike using up all her mana. “What…”

“Excuse me,” the sister standing next to the door says briskly, and snatches the infant out of the mage’s arms. “Good day.” Coldly, inexorably, she pushes the door open and shuts it quietly behind her.

“No-!” Wynne tries to sit up, reaching out for the sister who has her baby in her arms. “Please…” _Oh please, please, I’ll do anything, just bring me back my child._.

“Um, they always do,” the mage beside her says, looking distantly over her head, as though anything could make her feel better about having her child taken away. Wynne looks at her blankly, desperately. _Why do you let them?_ She doesn’t have the strength to say it aloud.

“Here.” The mage kneels beside the bed and tendrils of magic float from her hands to Wynne’s abdomen, easing some of the pain and washing strength back into her limbs. As soon as she can take a deep enough breath she asks “What was it?”

“Not a good idea,” the other mage says firmly, dipping a cloth into a bowl of water.

“Please!” Wynne’s voice is raspy. “What harm could it do? She’s gone.”

She dips the cloth into the water methodically, long after it is saturated and she could stop. “A son,” she says, so softly that Wynne almost doesn’t catch it.

  


The desk is a comfortable barrier between them. Even so, Ser Greagoir can’t bear to look her in the eye. Wynne hasn’t been dressing herself with care, or brushing her hair. Her robes are stained and her lovely golden hair is tangled in knots.

He looks out the window instead. “The senior enchanters and templars have met,” he says, his voice as distant and clinical as he can make it. “We have decided to confer on you the rank of senior enchanter.”

Will she be pleased? Will this finally make her raise her head, put the spring back in her step? Will it make her smile again, laugh that bewitching laugh?

_That’s dangerous ground._

She’s so quiet he wonders if for some reason she hasn’t heard him, and he repeats himself. There’s still nothing, and he is finally driven to turn around and look her in the eye. The connection is a jolt, as shocking as if he had been hit by a stray spell.

“It’s a bribe,” she says finally, coldly. “You don’t want me to say anything.”

He doesn’t have an answer to this. It’s stupid, of course he doesn’t want her to say anything. No matter how enchanting a sideways smile may be, an honorable position with the templars is more important. “Of course I would rather that you kept your secret.”

She slams a fist down on the desk with such ferocity that he jumps. “ _Your_ secret? I always knew that you were a dangerous bastard, but you’re a coward too.”

He holds up his hands. “Our secret, then.”

Her eyes, that he once thought so lovely, are chips of ice. “I should out you to the templars.”

It’s a threat, but he knows he’s not the first templar by far to make this mistake. “It might hold me back, but it won’t make them throw me out,” he replies, praying that he’s right.

“I hate you.”

He will never, ever let her see how the words hurt him. She will never see the way his stomach contracts as though she’d hit him, how the words make him clench his jaw. “I’m sorry that you feel that way,” he says, retreating into formalities. “But this is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Shall I tell the First Enchanter that you would prefer not to be a senior enchanter?”

Their gazes lock, and he tells himself that he won’t break first. Wynne glares at him and he matches her stare, and buries the memories of her eyelashes fluttering, the early morning light playing across her cheekbones.

Her shoulders slump. “I’ll take it.”

He nips the inside of his mouth to remind himself not to smile. “As you wish.”

  


Duncan rises, nods to Irving and Greagoir and makes a short bow to Wynne. “I appreciate your time. I am sure the king will be very glad to hear that you are considering sending reinforcements to Ostagar.”

Wynne smirks to herself. That’s clever; even though Irving and Greagoir never committed to anything, it makes them sound cowardly if they back out.

Irving groans as he rises to see Duncan out. “Too old for this nonsense,” he mumbles to himself as Duncan leaves the room, more to himself than anything. Greagoir and Wynne ignore him; he says it twice a day at least. “Would you mind giving me a moment? Some business to deal with.”

Wynne gives him a kiss on the cheek and leaves, matching steps with Greagoir. “Will you be sending any templars to Ostagar?” she asks as they walk upstairs; both have things to deal with on the upper floors.

He scowls. “No. We barely have enough templars here as it is to keep the tower guarded. I couldn’t spare any even if the archdemon itself showed up.”

“Well, I did my part,” Wynne says, with more asperity than humor. Ever since her son was born, Greagoir treats her with wary courtesy and she treats him with veiled bitterness. She has led a full life, one that she appreciates and enjoys, but she can’t help her deep-rooted anger towards the knight-commander.

Greagoir holds open a door for her to walk through. He has a funny expression on his face, and as she walks through, he blurts “Rhys.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Rhys.” Greagoir shuts the door behind her and draws her to an alcove, sheltered by a bookshelf. They are hidden from the room, which is empty anyway. Wynne pushes at him. “I did this once before with you and I ended up somewhere I sincerely regretted. _Excuse_ me.”

“His name is Rhys. He’s at the Orlesian Circle.”

She feels as though he’s hit her in the stomach. Her breath comes in hard gasps and she grabs his face between her hands, shaking him slightly. “How did you…”

“I made some inquiries. He was in the Tevinter Imperium for a while, but was returned to the Orlesian Circle a few months ago.”

“How long have you known?” she gasps.

“I, um…” He looks down at his feet. “Years.”

She slaps him as hard as she can.

“I deserved that, I guess.”

“You did.” Wynne puts her hand on his cheek and guides his face back around to her. For a moment that stretches out to infinity, they stare at each other. Then she kisses him.

It’s not like their old frantic, hurried kisses stolen in alcoves like this. His skin is bristly and grey under her hand and she knows her lips are thin and wrinkled. When he slips his hand into her hair, it’s coarse and white rather than fine and yellow. Despite his daily training, his shoulders are bowed forwards under her hands.

They pull back at the same time. Wynne trails her fingers down his jaw and he rubs his thumb along her neck.

“I’m going to Ostagar.”

He nods. “I thought you would.”

“Keep an eye out for him.”

“I will.”

  


When the pride demon bursts out of the walls, Greagoir knows that they’re all out of their depth, and they’re all going to die.

Wynne flings a frost spell at a rage demon, freezing it for moments only until it breaks free and seeps into a templar, whom he is forced to stab before it turns on the others. The boy’s face is contorted in terror, and he hates himself as he slides the blade between his ribs. He thinks of the Chant to focus himself, praying that he will not see the boy’s face in his dreams.

_Though all before me is shadow_

He sees his lieutenant, lips mumbling prayers, fall to a shade, and a mage child has her head torn off, still screaming, by a desire demon. These are sights from the Void. This is what the magisters saw as they tainted the Black City.

_Yet shall the Maker be my guide_

He grabs a templar’s shoulder and shouts in his ear “Fall back! Spread the order!” and shouts to his other templars the same command. The last few mages here will fall soon enough, or will be possessed, and his templars will die if he stays a moment longer.

_I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the beyond_

Three of his templars push through the fray and jam the door open, and he gets an arm under a wounded templar and drags him forwards. It’s twenty steps to the door…ten…he slashes wildly at a dark shape that rises to attack him and feels his gut clench in horror as a teenaged mage falls, his head split open.

_For there is no darkness in the Maker’s light_

He turns back at the door to make sure that all the other templars are in safe. Five mages are still in the antechamber, outnumbered two to one by demons, but his templars are past the door. He grabs at the handle to slam it shut, and Wynne looks up, alerted by the noise. Her eyes meet his as the doors close, and in them he does not see surprise, or hatred, but resignation. She knows.

“My duty comes first,” he’d whispered to her, a newly harrowed mage and a templar recruit in the library together.

_And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._

The doors slam shut.


End file.
